Art:Becoming Queer: Warhol in the 1950’s and Jerett Robert Austin’s Camille

If you were as intrigued by the queer overtones in the majority of Warhol’s work at the Whitney’s newest exhibition ‘Andy Warhol - A to B and Back Again’ then you’ll be happy to hear about an upcoming gallery talk on that exact subject and more. Art historians Nina Schleif and Trevor Fairbrother will be discussing Warhol’s representations of homoeroticism on the third floor of the Whitney in the Susan and John Hess Family Gallery and Theater. Schleif is a German art historian who wrote ‘Drag and Draw Andy Warhol: The Unknown Fifties’ and Fairbrother is an independent curator who’s written extensively on Andy Warhol. The Whitney states that the talk will mainly cover, “Warhol’s depictions of queer desire, his collaborations with the photography Otto Fenn, and the social milieu of New York’s gay subculture during the McCarthy-era.” The talk will also be accompanied by a screening of Jerett Robert Austin’s Camille, “a drag parody of the 1936 George Cukor classic film starring Robert Taylor and Greta Garbo.” The film pairs well with Warhol’s work being that it’s another influential depiction of gay subculture during McCarthyism when homosexuality and drag was outlawed. —gayletter

This past weekend, RuPaul‘s DragConarrived back in New York City and it was exactly the right dosage of drag queens needed to push us through the absence of RuPaul’s Drag Race on TV. Since GAYLETTER had a table and several photographers on the ground, we spent the three day convention (see photo libraries — Day 1 – Day 2 – Day 3) out of drag and uncertain of how all of these queens and kids were beat for the gods from sun up til sun down. Three days is a lot of makeup, hairspray and tucking tape. Not to mention fashion, there was a lot of that there. Oh, and screaming! And, if you were there to see the industry big-wigs (no pun intended) like Katya, Alyssa Edwards or KimChi, there was a lot of waiting too. Now that the weekend is over, we do kind of wish there was another DragCon to look forward too.

We all really enjoyed ourselves. We are big drag fans, and not just drag race fans. Dragula, Drag Race Thailand, good drag, bad drag, kiddie drag, mommy drag. You name it we yassss it. So we ran around behind queens all weekend to see what they were wearing and to clock their makeup in person. It was, as they say, gaggy.

You probably are wondering, more photos of drag queens? Lord. Well, we know, but simply take these 12 portraits by photographer Jason Leavy as a bonus and beautiful closure to our coverage for DragCon NYC 2018. …

Come join us this week, starting this Thursday, September 20 at 6:00PM (for the preview) as we head to the Printed Matter‘s Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 — We’ll be at Booth N27. The book fair is one of our favorite events of the year (Click here to see photos from the last year). Not only is it a wonderful chance to meet our readers, but we also like to sneak off from our booth, when if we get the chance, to go roam around the floors of the fair to see all the amazing printed matter available from other publishers and galleries from around the world.

There is an overload of incredible stuff to look at. In its 13th year the fair features 365 exhibitors. It is also the first fair since the death of it’s curator Shannon Michael Caine. It won’t be the same fair without him…On Sunday at 3:30PM we’re going to be talking on a panel about BUTT magazine — It’s the US premiere of the film ‘After BUTT’ by Ian Giles (Here’s the Facebook page with more details). Come to the Art Book Fair to support print and help us keep our publication alive by buying one, or ALL available issues, nothing wrong with owning the entire collection!